Sons and Daughters
by evilqueenmayor731
Summary: Outlaw Queen one-shot. When she needs it most, Regina is given a reminder of the joys her life still holds. Trigger warning for miscarriage. Note this has not been beta'd.


Regina heard the bedroom door open and close behind her. Her gaze remained in front of her, unfocused, barely blinking.

"Regina?" She recognized the voice. Snow. Come to console her, of course. If Regina had any room left inside her for another emotion, it would have been revulsion.

Snow walked around the bed and pulled up a chair so she could be on her step-mother's level. She was taken aback by Regina's appearance. Her gray silk pajamas were wrinkled from several days of wear. Her normally carefully coifed hair was a mess of grease and tangles. She was pale, her eyes bloodshot, the circles under them large and dark. Snow reached for Regina's hand. Regina did not pull away. She didn't speak or even look at her visitor. The silence only added to Snow's concern.

"I know there's nothing I can say that will make this easier," Snow said softly, earnestly.

_No, there isn't._

"I know what it feels like to lose a child. All of the hopes and dreams that you have that will never be realized."

_Yes, because I took them away from you. You are not helping._

"But I promise you, Regina, it will get better. You can try again, like David and I did. Robin is your second chance at love, and the two of you will have a second chance at having a child. I just know it."

No change. No movement. But inside Regina reeled. A second chance, that struck home. But she didn't want a second chance. She wanted the one that had been taken from her, the child she had miscarried three days earlier.

Snow had been certain that she would be able to get through to her, even after Robin had lamented at Regina's unresponsiveness. He'd tried everything he could think of, but after a few failed attempts he'd decided to give her what she obviously wanted – space to be alone. Nothing he could do would snap her out of the swirling maelstrom of pain inside her that had rendered her so broken that she had yet to cry.

She came close, though, when she closed her eyes. The few times she had tried to sleep, one image had haunted her and rendered it impossible – the last ultrasound picture, the one of a tiny hand waving at them. The one that had shown that they would have a daughter. The picture that was still on the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Regina blinked and Snow was gone. She couldn't remember when she'd left, but now Emma was in her place. She wondered if she'd started sleeping with her eyes open or if she was simply hallucinating. At least Emma wasn't trying to hold her hand.

"So I'm not real good at this kinda thing," Emma said.

No, you're only good at taking children not consoling those who've lost them.

Emma gestured to a tray on the bedside table. "You should try to eat something. Robin said you haven't had anything since you got home. He's worried."

_Ah yes, try the guilt game. He should be worried. He's left me up here alone as if he can't stand the sight of me. I failed him. I failed our daughter. He must look at me and see a void – the void inside me where a life used to be. Food can't fill that emptiness. Stupid girl._

"So is Henry. I told him to give you some time but you know how he is. He's insisting on staying here tonight. I don't think Robin had the energy to argue with him about it. And Roland… he's just confused I think. Maybe if he could come talk to you?" Emma sighed. She wasn't getting anywhere, and patience wasn't her strong suit.

"Just think about it, okay?" Regina's only response was to blink over her sandpaper eyes then roll onto her back. The ceiling was an infinitely better view than Emma's impossibly blonde curls and sympathetic expression.

She left without saying goodbye. She was useless. They all were. Nobody could fix her. Nobody could replace what she had lost. More than the child, Regina feared she would lose the fragile family that she and Robin had cobbled together from their separate lives.

"Mama 'Gina?" Regina turned her head at the sound of the tiny voice. Roland was standing beside the bed, his curly hair and precious face just visible over the edge of the mattress.

"Hey Mom." Henry stood next to Roland. In Regina's heart, the protective layer of ice she'd placed around the burning pain and grief began to crack.

She looked at them both, the boys she considered her sons, and wondered what they thought of her in that moment. Were they afraid? She couldn't bear to be the cause of that.

She patted the bed with her hand. Henry helped Roland climb up. The smallest Merry Man clamored over Regina's legs to sit down at her left side, while Henry took up residence on her right.

"I'm sorry," Henry said. Regina touched his cheek and tried to smile, tried to reassure him that everything would be alright. Only a corner of her mouth twitched.

"Me too," Roland chimed in as he placed his diminutive hand in hers. "You still have me and Henry and Papa."

_Do I?_ she wondered as she squeezed his hand. _You are here, but where's your father?_

"That's right," agreed Henry. He propped himself against the headboard. "And we're not going anywhere." He crossed his ankles, and Regina's weak smile grew ever so slightly. She liked to think that he got his stubbornness from her.

Roland's hand slipped from her grip. She looked over to see him eyeing her untouched breakfast.

"Can I have your bacon?" She nodded and made a mental note to start keeping an eye on how much he was eating. He looked up to Little John, but she didn't want him to end up that large. It wasn't healthy.

It seemed ridiculous to continue to lie flat when the boys were upright. She scooted up in the bed and used the headboard much the way Henry was. Both boys seized the opportunity to cuddle in close to her sides. Her eyes drifted closed, and instead of seeing the child she had lost, her sons' smiling faces floated in her mind's eye. Beneath her closed lids, tears welled.

"Mama 'Gina?" Roland said, causing her to sniffle and look down at him. "You need a bath."

Laughter bubbled up and out of her throat. The tears that had formed in sorrow fell in amusement. Outside in the hall, a silent Robin slumped to the floor with relief. He too shed tears of happiness, for the sound of his wife's laughter was a stronger tonic to his soul than any medicine Doctor Whale could prescribe. It would take time for her to heal – for all of them to. But at least she was still in there, inside the shell of her former self that he had been desperately trying to break into.

Regina put her arms around the boys and pulled them into tight hugs. They smelled of the outdoors, of school classrooms and youth and life. They reminded her that she was still alive and she was their mother. After days of being trapped inside her own head, they had reached their tiny hands inside and pulled her out. She was theirs and they loved her. Even if she did need a bath.

Regina stepped out of the bathroom fresh from the shower, dressed in casual pants and blouse, toweling off her hair, to find Robin taking the sheets off the bed.

"I think these could use a wash as well," he said with a cautiously crooked grin. Only a hint of the dimples his son had inherited. She watched as he bundled the linens up and moved towards the door.

"Wait," she said, the first words she'd uttered since the incident. Since she'd said "something's wrong" and "we need to go to the hospital". Since she'd acknowledged outwardly what she'd feared for days. She dropped her towel on the floor and his jaw dropped. She never did that – she was compulsive about hanging everything up. That had been one of the first adjustments he made when he moved in with her.

The carpet was soft under her bare feet as she approached him. She took the sheets from his arms and dropped them onto the bed. She needed him more than they needed washed.

She stepped into him, her arms around his waist, her face turned so that her cheek touched his shoulder. Her chin trembled, and when she felt his arms encircle her shoulders she released the sobs she'd buried for days.

"I'm sorry," she choked out as he stroked her hair. "I don't know what I did wrong." There, in Robin's arms, she was not the mayor or the queen. She was simply a woman who, in some ways, was very much still a girl. She felt a girl's fears and insecurities as sharply as anyone else – sometimes even more so. That she was more adept at hiding them did not lessen their effect. She had learned early on that no amount of hiding could deceive her soul mate, the master thief. So she no longer tried. That she'd gone three days lost in her own emotions had not been intentional. She'd felt alone, and he'd assumed she wanted it that way. She rarely showed weakness to anyone outside of their little family. He realized how much leaving her alone had been a mistake.

"Shh, Regina. You didn't do anything wrong. The doctor said so." He held her as she cried out days' worth of sorrow.

"It is I who should apologize. I thought you wanted space, to be left in peace. So I kept everyone away – not just the boys but myself as well." He leaned down and buried his face in her damp hair. The wet strands cooled his face as his own hot tears fell.

"I abandoned you when you needed me the most. Please, love, forgive me." Guilt twisted his heart in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Or maybe it was the sobs causing his chest to clench tight.

"No," she said, her breath hitching as she tried to reign herself in. She pulled back to look at him. Red-rimmed eyes met bloodshot and bruised. The outward signs of the brutality their souls were enduring.

"I was so wrapped up in my own feelings that I didn't even think about yours. I've been so selfish." She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his, her voice dropping low. "You lost her too."

Her. They hadn't chosen a name yet. He didn't know if it was too late to do it, or if there was any point. There would be no grave to visit or body to bury.

And so it was that they accepted their own grief by acknowledging the other's. The love that had created their daughter would hold them together, just as they physically held one another and cried. Together.


End file.
